From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 27

civil liberties, a free and open media, and individual autonomy. Finally,
the proposal for the Chilean version of a computer utility demonstrates
the need to consider the social relations of technology in any discussion of
cloud computing. For Chile, the Cybersyn network was important because
it would advance national development, but also because it would promote
public participation in the political and economic life of the nation. Too
valuable to be kept under private control, it would serve society as a whole.
It is easy to question whether Allende's government moved too fast
to nationalize resource industries and promote workplace democracy
with new information technology. Or perhaps it proceeded too slowly,
because the government refused to arm supporters under militant attack
from U.S.-backed sectors of the society. It is also easy to brand Beer as
an eccentric who got in over his head in a place he did not understand.
But before doing so, it is worthwhile to compare Chile's ambitious plans
to use a new technology to bring about a thorough democratization of
society with two examples from the political uses of today's cloud. The
irst is generally viewed as an unalloyed success because it is widely seen
as a major contributor to returning Barack Obama to the White House.
I am referring to his campaign's use of cloud computing and big-data
analysis provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a division of the online
retail giant, to identify potential voters and successfully deliver enough of
them to the polls to exceed many pundits' expectations. The campaign
built more than 200 apps that ran in AWS, making such heavy use that
the company's chief technology oficer tweeted his personal congratula-
tions to his counterpart in the Obama campaign once victory was certain.
The campaign utilized the Amazon cloud in many ways, but the skilled
deployment of databases in modeling, analytics, and integration was key.
Speciically, “This array of databases allowed campaign workers to target
and segment prospective voters, shift marketing resources based on near
real-time feedback on the effectiveness of certain ads, and drive a dona-
tion system that collected over one billion dollars (making it the 30th
largest ecommerce site in the world)” (Cohen 2012). Another key was a
set of tools that helped the campaign determine the most eficient televi-
sion advertising buys (dubbed the Optimizer) and targeted messages to
Twitter and Facebook users (called blasters) (Hoover 2012).
There is nothing especially unusual about these and other strategies
in the Obama campaign's partnership with Amazon. It appears that the